The rumoured meeting of the Budavian Assembly proved, like many other rumoured events, to be a canard, the only foundation for which was a hastily called session of the Privy Council. Before this august body, over which the Prince Regent presided, Chancellor von Ritter laid all the facts that had come into his possession; and very startling facts they were, including a confiscated letter from Baron von Einhard addressed to Captain Lindenwald, telling of the failure of the abduction plot and of the securing of that precious heirloom, the signet ring of the Prince of Kronfeld.

This communication gave indubitable proof that Lindenwald had been false to his trust, and it fully justified the Chancellor in having him placed under arrest. It did not tend, however, to throw any light on the mystifying main question. Was the man who had been welcomed with such acclaim on the previous evening really the Crown Prince, as every bit of evidence up to the time of his arrival tended to prove, or was he, as he claimed, simply the cat’s-paw of a company of conscienceless conspirators?

The von Einhard letter would in a way indicate that his title was clear and genuine, as, had it been otherwise, there would have been no necessity to conspire with Lindenwald to bring about his abduction. Yet, if Lindenwald knew him to be the Crown Prince, why should he run the risk of dickering with the Baron, seeing that greater good fortune than he could possibly hope to earn by such a course lay in the direction of his faithful carrying out of his mission?

Upon these points the Privy Council debated long and eagerly, if not altogether wisely. Men are slow to confess even to themselves that they have been imposed upon, and the State Council had months before by an overwhelming majority declared its faith in the integrity of the claimant. It was, therefore, no more than to be expected that the majority should still favour the theory that Prince Max, in his assertion that he was simply a plain American citizen, was labouring under an hallucination. There had been a strain of dementia in the ruling line for seven generations, and this exhibition of mental malady was to those who now recalled the fact but another evidence of legitimacy.

On the minority who were known to be partial to Prince Hugo the proof of von Einhard’s treachery served as an effective gag. They could not afford to imply sympathy for such conduct by opposition to the ruling notion; and so it happened that, while every phase of the question was discussed with much earnestness, there was ever an underlying sentiment that promised but one conclusion—the unqualified endorsement of the fancied unfortunately demented young Prince in the Flag Tower.

As the session was approaching its close, a card was brought to Count von Ritter. The Chancellor, however, deeply interested in the speech of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which was then in progress, laid it on the table before him without adjusting his glasses to read it, and had it not been for the dullness of the speech of the Secretary of War which followed, the session would probably have come to a vote and adjourned before he gave it heed. But as it chanced, bored by the prosiness of the speaker, he took up the piece of pasteboard, placed his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, and read the name: “Mr. Nicholas Van Tuyl,” with a pencil scrawl beneath: “Your friend of Munich and the Monterossan War Loan.” Whereupon he arose instantly and tip-toed from the Council Hall into the ante-room adjoining, where Van Tuyl and O’Hara were with some impatience waiting.

Their reception by Count von Ritter was cordial in the extreme. The sentiment of the Council had served to lift a load from his shoulders, and he was in fine good humour.

“Remember you!” he cried, wringing Van Tuyl’s hand, his small eyes alight, “of course I remember you; and my debt to you, too—Budavia’s debt to you. Why, my dear sir, you should have had a decoration. The late King was very remiss in not sending you one. But we will do what we can to make up for it.” “Ah,” returned the New York banker, “you are very good indeed, Count, and I am going to hold you to your word. Lieutenant O’Hara and I have come for something this evening—something we want very much, and something I feel sure you can give us.”

The Chancellor bowed and stretched forth his hands with palms upturned and open, in signal of his willingness to give.

“What we desire,” continued Nicholas Van Tuyl, smiling his recognition, “is information. There are many sensational reports abroad, as you probably know; but we men of finance are in the habit of discounting unverified rumours. We are not credulous. We want facts with an authority to back them up. We want confirmation or denial.”

Von Ritter’s geniality was still fervent.

“You wish to know, for instance—” he invited.

“We wish to know, Count, whether there is any basis for the story that His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, is being restrained of his liberty.”

The Chancellor smiled a little patronisingly. “Do they say that?” he asked.

“That is the least they say,” Van Tuyl returned.

For a moment Count von Ritter hesitated.

“May I, without discourtesy, inquire why you are interested?” he questioned.

“We are interested,” answered the New Yorker, promptly, “because he is our personal friend. I have known him for years, and Lieutenant O’Hara here has been with him, he tells me, continually from the day he left America.”

The three were still standing; but now the Chancellor motioned his visitors to be seated.

“You in turn interest me,” he said, as he took a chair and sat down facing them. “How long, Mr. Van Tuyl, have you known him? For how many years?”

“Ten at least,” was the answer. “He came down to the Street when he was twenty. He was with Dunscomb & Fiske in 1893, I remember.”

“The Street?” repeated the Count, questioningly.

“Yes, Wall Street. You knew he was a Wall Street stock broker, didn’t you?” The Chancellor paled perceptibly, his eyes widened a trifle and the straight line of his lips narrowed under his close-cropped moustache.

“Yes,” he returned, diplomatically, after an instant’s pause. “Yes. His name, I think, was Grey, was it not?”

“Grey. Yes, Carey Grey.”

Count von Ritter cleared his throat and then for a moment he sat in silence, his lids half-closed, his mouth tight-drawn. When he spoke it was very seriously, with a changed demeanour.

“Budavia has still more for which to thank you, Mr. Van Tuyl,” he said, rising.

The New York banker and the Irish lieutenant also stood up. It was evident to both that a blunder had been made.

“I don’t just see for what,” said the older man, a little nervously. “I haven’t told you anything you didn’t know. I didn’t come here to tell you anything. I came to have you tell me something.”

“I think,” replied the Count, with an urbanity that was the acme of trained diplomacy, “that you said just now you came here to confirm a rumour, or words to that effect. You have, my dear sir, confirmed it. And now I must ask you to excuse me. You are at the KÖnigin Anna, I suppose? I shall have the pleasure of calling upon you tomorrow.”

The Chancellor bowed, smiling, and before Van Tuyl could remonstrate had disappeared into the Hall of Council. And then it was that O’Hara for the first time found words.

“Well, I’m damned!” he said. And he said it with emphasis.

Meanwhile the Colonial Secretary had finished his wearying oration and the Prince Regent had suggested the advisability of adjournment. But the return of the Chancellor, craving the privilege of the floor, awakened a new interest. His usually immobile face was portentous in its marked gravity, and when he spoke every ear was alert.

“Your Highness,” he began, addressing the Prince Regent, “I am come to cry ‘Pause!’ I have listened to and taken part in a debate this evening the sole purpose of which, as I regard it now, has been to accomplish our own convincing. We constructed a theory upon a basis as unstable as the sands of the sea, and then marshalled arguments of straw to effect its establishment. In the whole history of Budavia I know of no incident of parallel puerility. We call ourselves statesmen, and we have acted with the confiding innocence of children. We gambolled like foolhardy lads blindfold upon the brink of a precipice, over which, had not a miracle intervened, we must have fallen into the slough of ignominious dishonour. Even as it is the smirch of its miasma is upon us, and we cannot escape the ridicule that is entailed.

“Our supposed mad Prince Maximilian of Kronfeld, now so carefully guarded in the Flag Tower, your Highness, is, I make bold to announce, a perfectly sane American gentleman and nothing more.”

The Prince Regent leaned suddenly forward, his hands clutching the arms of his chair. The other members of the Council stirred, changed their positions; two of them got onto their feet. But the Chancellor still standing, the Prince Regent motioned them back to their places, and the speaker continued:

“In the chain of evidence I have, within the past five minutes, found a broken link. The statements made to me by the supposed heir have, in one important particular, been verified to my entire satisfaction, and these statements were, as you know, at utter variance with what we had been led to believe was the truth—in direct contradiction to the alleged proofs of royal birth.”

“But, your Excellency,” protested the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, rising again, “is not this simply jumping from one conclusion to another?”

The Chancellor frowned grimly.

“At first glance,” he replied, resting the tips of his long, knotted fingers on the table between them, “it may appear so. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and this link, as I have stated, has been shattered into infinitesimal atoms.”

Count von Ritter spoke for fully an hour. He reviewed the affair from the beginning, detailing every step in the building up of the fabric and demonstrating with marked effect how a single pin-prick had brought about its total collapse. The pretender—if he could be so called in view of the fact that he personally had laid no claim to the throne, but, on the other hand, had of his own free will protested against the honour they would have forced upon him—should be quietly deported, and as expeditiously as possible arrangements effected for the coronation of Prince Hugo. The detection and punishment of those involved in the plot to steal the crown must be brought about with all the secrecy possible. Already two of the conspirators, he announced, were under arrest, and the apprehension of others would speedily follow.

It was long after midnight when the Council adjourned, and the Chancellor returned to his ancient mansion on the Graf Strasse. Rest for him, however, was not yet to come. Upon the writing table in his library were many State papers demanding his attention, and, aided by his secretary, who had been awaiting his home-coming, he went systematically to work to clear away the more important before retiring.

At a quarter past two he threw down his quill and leaned back in his chair with a yawn.

“That will do for tonight, Heinrich,” he said, kindly, “I’m sorry to have had to keep you up so long.”

And as he spoke the telephone rang long, loud and viciously. The secretary put the receiver to his ear, and answered into the mouthpiece. The Count rose and stretched himself. It was unusual for the telephone to ring at that hour, and he wondered, watching Heinrich’s face. He saw the young man’s chin drop and his eyes suddenly grow round.

“Your Excellency!” he exclaimed, excitement in his voice. “Your Excellency! Listen! The Crown Prince has escaped from the Flag Tower, together with his servant and Captain Lindenwald. And the Captain’s man has been shot, seriously—they think fatally. One of the guards was found bound in His Royal Highness’s apartment. Another guard has a broken leg, and three others are slightly injured.”